Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Losing Battles and Winning Wars
- 2 Prologue to Tragedy: U.S. Military Opposition to Intervention in Vietnam, 1950–1954
- 3 Preparing for and Avoiding War: Military Affairs and Politics in Vietnam and the United States, 1955–1960
- 4 Pinning Down the President: JFK, the Military, and Political Maneuvering over Vietnam, January-October 1961
- 5 The Best and Worst of Times: The U.S. War against Vietnam, October 1961–November 1963
- 6 “Seeing Things Through in Vietnam”: LBJ, the Military, and the Growing U.S. Commitment to Vietnam, November 1963-December 1964
- 7 Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst: U.S. Ground Troops Enter the Vietnam War, January-July 1965
- 8 War on Three Fronts: U.S. Forces versus the Viet Cong, Westmoreland versus the Marines, and Military Leaders versus the White House, July 1965-December 1966
- 9 “The Platform of False Prophets Is Crowded”: Public Hope and Private Despair in Vietnam, 1967
- 10 The Myth of Tet: Military Failure and the Politics of War
- 11 Conclusion: Bringing It All Back Home
- Epilogue: “This Is a Real War”: Military Dissent and Politics after Vietnam
- Bibliography
- Index
Epilogue: “This Is a Real War”: Military Dissent and Politics after Vietnam
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Losing Battles and Winning Wars
- 2 Prologue to Tragedy: U.S. Military Opposition to Intervention in Vietnam, 1950–1954
- 3 Preparing for and Avoiding War: Military Affairs and Politics in Vietnam and the United States, 1955–1960
- 4 Pinning Down the President: JFK, the Military, and Political Maneuvering over Vietnam, January-October 1961
- 5 The Best and Worst of Times: The U.S. War against Vietnam, October 1961–November 1963
- 6 “Seeing Things Through in Vietnam”: LBJ, the Military, and the Growing U.S. Commitment to Vietnam, November 1963-December 1964
- 7 Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst: U.S. Ground Troops Enter the Vietnam War, January-July 1965
- 8 War on Three Fronts: U.S. Forces versus the Viet Cong, Westmoreland versus the Marines, and Military Leaders versus the White House, July 1965-December 1966
- 9 “The Platform of False Prophets Is Crowded”: Public Hope and Private Despair in Vietnam, 1967
- 10 The Myth of Tet: Military Failure and the Politics of War
- 11 Conclusion: Bringing It All Back Home
- Epilogue: “This Is a Real War”: Military Dissent and Politics after Vietnam
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
I did some checking. I found that it had been traditional that the JCS spied on the White House. They wanted to know what was going on.
Richard Milhous NixonThe U.S. military may have checked out of Vietnam in the 1970s, but it still had not left. Just as that war continues to shape American foreign and military policy and the nation's cultural politics, it has also conditioned the armed forces' approach to policy making and civil-military relations for the past two decades. Even before the war ended, service leaders feared that they were bearing the burden for the U.S. failure in Vietnam as the military's previously respected standing in American public life dropped markedly. Thus Harold K. Johnson complained that “the whole onus for Vietnam … has fallen upon ‘the military,’” while Matthew Ridgway lamented that “not before in my lifetime – and I was born into the Army in the nineteenth century “ has the Army's public image suffered so many grievous blows and fallen to such low esteem in such wide areas of our society.”
The decline in military prestige and influence did not last long, however. In the aftermath of Tet, American service leaders intensified their efforts to score political points and regain traditional levels of credibility and power, while civilian leaders in turn continued their own political struggles against the brass.
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- Information
- Masters of WarMilitary Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era, pp. 353 - 362Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996